Well for the past 6 months Mandy has been waking up between 4:30am and 6:30am to run from 3-22 miles, a training schedule she was provided by the Burnam Institute.   This is the group that she raised over $2,500 which is dedicated to revealing the fundamental molecular causes of disease and devising the innovative therapies of tomorrow.   Total they raised over $125,000 for medical research and awareness!!

Over the course of 6 months, I have watched and supported her run the Nona 5k, OUC Half, Jacksonville Half and now the Disney Marathon.  I have a whole new respect for the running culture and the dedication involved.  Luckily she had an amazing and dedicated running partner Jennifer Thompson.  Jennifer motivated Mandy and Mandy motivated her, they are a strong team and both first time marathon runners!

So, this weekend was the Disney Marathon and I wanted to tell you a little about my side of this Sunday’s experience.  I’ve already told you about details from other races.   Sunday was the big race, and Mandy had been staying with Team Burnam since Friday over in the Disney Area.  I had the house to myself to prepare for whatever came, with Saturday cleaning the house top to bottom; bathrooms, vacuuming, mopping, cleaning the kitchen, unloading dishwasher, cleaning dog slobber from windows AND washing the dogs, vacuuming and washing two cars by hand, taking down Christmas decorations, grocery shopping, and buying lots of flowers for Mandy’s homecoming!  It was a hell of a day with little sleep the night before.  That Saturday I also went to the Office Max to buy some poster boards for funny signs for the race.  I didn’t want Mandy to come home to a messy house not that she would have cared because of how tired she was.

Race day came and I was up by 5:15am.   Not as early as Gavin and Dawn whom watched the runners take off, which I’m sure is really awe inspiring.  I picked up David (Jennifer’s husband) at his house and we were on Disney property by 6:20am.  We were fairly prepared packed with our signs, towels and water for the girls, Publix chicken wings as a snack, cameras, and a map.

The shotgun was at 5:50am and they left in three large groups.   There were over 21,000 runners and first place was Brazilian Adriano Bastos finishing in 2:20:38.  Mandy and Jenn were in the third group and were quite frustrated at the slow place of the start.  I was told most people were walking because it was so congested.  They first entered into Epcot and looped around back out of the park to mile 4.  Dave and I were shooting to meet them at mile 4 but were concerned when we had to park at the Transportation and Ticket Center and take the monorail to Epcot.  After arriving at Epcot and seeing the mobs of people we decided to skip mile 4 and wait for the girls at mile 9 back at Transportation and Ticket Center.  We still debate if we could have seen them at mile 4, but the number of people was overwhelming and we wanted to be sure we saw them at mile 9.  Ironically Jenn had her cell phone on her and as we were driving up she was on the phone with Dave (this was where she was walking at the beginning).  We were able to communicate easily with her via text messages and that made things so much better!!  We were also tracking the girls based on what they have run in the past, and via a text messaging service Disney was providing that was tracked via their ChampionChip (although the text was delayed about 10-20 minutes, but it helped us judge mile average.

Our first text was directly form Jenn saying she was passing mile 6.  We patiently waited at mile 9, setup camp on the less crowded side and started holding our signs, supporting all the other runners passing by and getting lots of laughs and comments.  Here we saw the first pace setter setting a 5 hour pace, then the 5:30 pace (this will be important later).  So Dave’s first sign is the one pictured below, we got a few comments like, “Aww that’s not nice,” and “Can I buy the medal off you?”

Dave’s first sign

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Mandy after a 21.2mile run taking an ice bath

I never understood the desire of running a marathon (maybe for health reasons?).  I just thought you would train for a few months, then get to the marathon and pace yourself and keep pushing yourself and that’s it.  It’s much more than that…

Mandy’s been training for her January 11th Disney Marthon since around the end of July.  The time training, ice baths, the money spent on shoes; equipment, clothes,  and power packs for her long runs has been fascinating.  She first started to run 2-5 mile runs a couple times a week and once a week she would have a long run.  Her first long run was 8 miles, second was 10, third was 16, and now she’s up to 21.2.  These runs occur anywhere between 5am-7am in the morning (the longer the run the earlier the start).  I watched her first official 5k, which is a short but still hard 3.1 miles.

Saturday she ran her first official Half-Marathon at the OUC Half.  I never imagined it was that hard till you see your wife, her friend and many others struggle to stay on pace.  I have a whole new respect and understanding of how hard you push your body to it’s absolute limits.

Friday night before the OUC Half we watched Spirit of the Marathon.  A documentary recommended to us that follows 5 marathoners from first timers to Olympic Champion runners.  You’re moved at why these people do it, be it just to finish, or to finish and beat your last time at the age of 65.  It’s unbelievable the struggle you go through to accomplish such a challenging goal.  That really pumped me up for supporting Mandy at the OUC Half.

Mandy and Jen on their first 21.2 mile long run.

At the race, I wanted to cheer Mandy on at least 4 places.  I was able to do so, and the last few places I saw her pass I ran from one place in the course to another via shortcuts (that was hard in itself and I was thinking how can these people run this long!?!?)!  As some of you know I can be pretty loud, and I wasn’t just cheering on the wife, I was cheering on everyone that passed.  I’ve never gotten so many thank you’s before and I was glad to be their cheerleader too.

Marathons are fucking hard!  Pushing your body to the ultimate extreme looks like a humbling experience.  I would do it once to experience such a satisfying life long learning experience.  I would also do it to build up such an incredible endurance!

Now I know this Christmas season everyone is asking for money, so I won’t push it but if you could donate a few bucks to Mandy’s cause that would be very honerable of you.  And Team Mandy could use all your support for the race on Sunday, January 11th, at Disney!